After 170 Million Downloads, Temple Run’s Sequel Is Finally Here

“Temple Run,” a free-to-play game built by a small shop of three developers, is often viewed as a major success story for the Apple App Store.

The game has generated “millions” in revenue from in-app purchases, has been downloaded more than 170 million times and has more than 15 million players accessing the game every day, said Keith Shepherd, co-founder of the game’s publisher, Imangi.

Now Imagni is trying to replicate that success with a sequel to the game coming out today. Of course, a sequel doesn’t always guarantee success — look at “FarmVille 2,” a rebuilt game that has fewer than 10 million players every day, but well below that of its low-tech predecessor “FarmVille.”

There are some new tricks for the game. The controls are the same, but new obstacles like ziplines and mine tracks introduce challenges players haven’t seen before. There are new characters with different special abilities.

But the core of the game is still the same. It’s designed to feel familiar, but have enough new content to attract new players. It also sports a significant lift when it comes to graphics and environments.

The iPhone version is available today, with Android and Amazon versions planned for release next week. We caught up with Natalia Luckyanova and Shepherd to find out more. Here’s an edited transcript of the interview:

WSJ: Can you give us a quick background for Imangi?

Natalia Luckyanova: We started the studio in 2008, right when the App Store launched. We worked for other companies as software engineers before that. Our first game that could be considered a hit was “Harbor Master,” that came out in 2009. “Temple Run” came out in the summer of 2011 and that was obviously a hit, with over 170 million downloads. Then we did some updates and merchandising, and we started on “Temple Run 2.”

WSJ: How did you settle on making a sequel?

Keith Shepherd: We started working on the second one this past March. When we built “Temple Run 1″ there were three of us that worked on it. Natalia does the music and sound effects and design. We worked with an artist for the original, which took five months. When we started making the sequel we were trying to build a bigger, better, more awesome version than the first. We’re still a relatively small studio, but we knew we were going to need some more help than just the three of us. We collaborated with two of our really good friends who are also indie developers, Fuzzy Cube — an artist and a programmer. The five of us altogether worked on the sequel.

WSJ: What’s different about the new game?

KS: Our main goal was to provide something that felt familiar. You immediately know how to play. You’re still running down this endless path, swiping to jump and turn and tilting.

I think the biggest difference is that you’re running in a new world. It’s much richer and vibrant. We leveled up on all of the art to make it look like a more compelling environment. We have gentle curves and hills and valleys. The first one is more rigid with only straight lines and lefts and rights. There wasn’t much organic curviness.

We have these ziplines — you’re running down a path and have to grab a zipline. It has the same gestures but you’re performing a new mechanic and a new action. You tilt to lean a mine cart left and right, and ducking down to avoid rafters. There’s more content there in the game. It may seem subtle on the surface, but it’s what our players asked for the most. Each character in “Temple Run 2″ has a unique power, you can use those powers as you fill up your coin meter. It adds a a strategic element to how you want to use those power-ups.

WSJ: How many players are there for “Temple Run”?

NL: We have a total of about 15 million daily active users.

WSJ: Do you expect all those players to migrate to the new game?

NL: We’re not really sure what’s gonna happen, we’re kind of curious. “Temple Run 2″ is a new update, but I think a lot of people will like the classic look and feel. We’re gonna wait and see how that shakes out.

KS: We’re not removing the original. I think people will play the one that they enjoy the most. Our hope is that we’ll get as many people playing the sequel as we had playing the original. Our plan is to keep them both updated and relevant.

WSJ: Is there enough to merit a sequel? “FarmVille 2″ wasn’t as large as “FarmVille 1,” for example…

KS: I think that’s definitely a concern, we hope that we’ve added enough that “Temple Run 2″ does feel like a completely new thing with a lot more to explore. We did the collaboration with Disney and Pixar and made “Temple Run: Brave,” it’s still up on the top of the charts on the paid side. (That app costs 99 cents.) That’s not necessarily a sequel, but it’s a version of “Temple Run” that people have grown to love. These things can co-exist. Our hope is that “Temple Run 2″ can co-exist with those other two.

“Angry Birds” for instance has about 10 SKUs, almost the same thing but with different content and environments. Mobile games are kind of small chunks of content and having multiple SKUs is a way that you can give people more of what they love. We’re definitely not experts in this, and we’re kind of playing it by ear a little bit. It could happen that the original fades off or people love the original, and the sequel doesn’t work out. We’re okay with any of these things happening.

WSJ: What works better, licensing for different SKUs or a freemium model?

NL: The in-app purchases have definitely been the biggest part of the business. Everything else adds up. That is how we’re looking at it.

KS: We got our licensing program off the ground last year. It’s been interesting to watch with what “Angry Birds” has done with their brand. You can’t go anywhere without seeing it. It seems like there is a tremendous amount of opportunity there. It’s still too early for us to tell if that will turn out that way for us, but those are things we’re pursuing.

We’ve been working a branding agency to get “Temple Run” out there. We licensed the IP for a comic book series, arcade cabinets, board games, and a few of those things are starting to come out.

WSJ: How much revenue comes from in-app purchases?

KS: We’ve shied away from talking about revenue numbers for “Temple Run.” The stat we did eventually said was we’ve made millions of dollars. Freemium has really caught on as something that has resonated with players. Freemium games tend to make more revenue per download than an equivalent product.

People in the industry always talk about DAUs (daily active users) and ARPU (average revenue per user) and all these stats about monetizing users, and we’ve kind of shied away from tracking a lot of that stuff. We’re trying to build a sustainable business, but we’re small and we focus on the game design first.

If you compare a game like “Temple Run” to “The Walking Dead” or “FarmVille” games, some of them are super-optimized for monetization. They have staff guys where they are building a game with monetization in mind. We don’t have anyone on our team for which that’s their role.

WSJ: So no plans to raise money then?

KS: We’re self-funded. There’s definitely been interest from people reaching out to us. We still, to this day, get a lot of emails of people interested in acquiring us and wanting to invest in us. Natalia and I have always thought of this as a lifestyle business. We really enjoy the creative aspect of making the games, and we decided we want to keep things small instead of growing the company. We’d end up having to manage teams instead of getting to do the part of the business we love.

Sometimes we do wonder, maybe we should have grown the company, maybe that would be fun, but ultimately being small just suits us better.

WSJ: Does that seem like a trend among app developers — staying small and sticking to development?

NL: We have heard from a number of our friends that there haven’t been businesses in the past with a tiny team that brings in a lot of revenue. Now you can be independent, working out of your house, playing with your baby and bringing in the money that a big business would. We were thinking, what do we want out of our everyday life, and we would prefer to stay small and work with things we want.

We won’t bring int he revenue a Zynga would make off “Temple Run,” but at the same time we’re only supporting us and a few contractors instead of a few thousand employees.

KS: There have been a lot of companies that had games that got really big and sold out and have been dismantled. Our small studio can outlast those big studios. Our focus isn’t on the exit. We’re going to be around doing what we love for a long time instead of selling our company in the short term. I think it just fits our style. Our games have been well enough that it supports what we need to do and we can keep doing it.